WHY SHOULD I CARE THAT A TREATMENT IS INEFFECTIVE IF I'M NOT PAYING FOR IT?:

If people gain access to better information about the consequences of various choices, will that lead to improved outcomes and quality of life?

Gawande: That's where the art comes in. There are problems because you lack information, but when you have information like "you shouldn't drink three cans of Coke a day -- you're going to put on weight," then having that information is not sufficient for most people.

Understanding what is sufficient to be able to either change the care or change the behaviors that we're concerned about is the crux of what we're trying to figure out and discover.

When the information is presented in a really interesting way, people have gradually discovered -- for example, having a little ball on your dashboard that tells you when you're accelerating too fast and burning off extra fuel -- how that begins to change the actual behavior of the person in the car.

No amount of presenting the information that you ought to be driving in a more environmentally friendly way ends up changing anything. It turns out that change requires the psychological nuance of presenting the information in a way that provokes the desire to actually do it.

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